College writing reforms and evolves from year to year due to the ongoing social, technological, and educational changes in America. The changes instituted ultimately poor quality writing from high school and college graduates. In response to the history of writing, Russell writes a call to consciousness; a consciousness for educators, writers and even students. A consciousness of how deep the problem with writing really is, how long term it is and how difficult it will be to fix.
In early years, socially, most all jobs and professions depended on oral speaking skills. Therefore, writing merely reflected one's verbal ability. Teachers lectured, politicians spoke, the assumption if one could speak well one could write well became a social more. Since no printing press or form of publishing existed, no formal way of writing was demanded for a successful career. Education systems believed in preparing students for society which at that time relied very little on writing, causing almost no emphasis or curriculum for writing.
As America industrialized it brought forth new professions requiring more and more communications through writing. The lack of formal writing skills emerged as these new graduates began filtering into the working world, which soon became reliant on written communications. Educators faced a problem that would haunt them for years to come, as a product of early mistakes.
American educators began blue printing ways to create a more or less universal way to teach students to write for the new rising job market. A specific course of only basic English seemed to be an easy solution. This primitive step towards better writing did help the problem. However, a narrow, only literary form of writing became a product of this solution, creating a handicap for students when writing for other subjects.
Simple reasoning pointed to eliminating one English course and instead supplementing each subject with a writing lesson.